An “independent Star Trek” movie sounds like an oxymoron, and that is what the entertainment companies behind the endlessly lucrative franchise are trying to tell the producers of Axanar, a “fan film” that has been pitching for completion funds on the crowdsourcing websites Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Axanar’s producers have been using the short film Prelude to Axanar to reel in donors. Is this an amateurish tribute or a professional low-budget movie that violates copyright?
A lawsuit filed by Paramount and CBS against the producers of Axanar accuses them of intellectual property infringement since the proposed film clearly uses “innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes”. The new Star Trek movie, Beyond, will be released around the world on June 22, 2016.
Axanar does not hide its goals: the producers describe it as “an independent production that proves a feature-quality Star Trek film can be made on a very modest budget — approximately $80,000 in the case of the short film that you just watched — and outside of the studio system”. The plot is meant to be a prequel to the first episode that featured Captain James T Kirk in the television series, is set 21 years before the events of Where No Man Has Gone Before, and follows the story track of the Garth of Izar.
Hollywood professionals, rather than Trekkies with laptops, are working on the movie, including actor Gary Graham, who has appeared as the character Soval in the episode Enterprise, make-up artist Brad Look, who has also worked on the franchise, and Academy Award sound designer Frank Serafine.
Both sides are ready with their arguments. One of Axanar’s producers, Alec Peters, told The Hollywood Reporter, “There are a lot of issues surrounding a fan film. These fan films have been around for 30 years, and others have raised a lot of money.” Paramount and CBS told the trade journal, “The producers of Axanar are making a Star Trek picture they describe themselves as a fully professional independent Star Trek film. Their activity clearly violates our Star Trek copyrights, which, of course, we will continue to vigorously protect.”